6 months ago I wrote my first part. 2 months before that, I wrote an article titled ” Passion vs Debt” when some students gave some nasty comments in my blog after the AUCMS loan fiasco issue that I brought up. I had always said that no matter what passion you have, in the end, medicine is just another job to earn a living. No one is going to come to your assistance when you got no money. Just because you help safe some lives does not mean people will come to your help when you are left with nothing. It is a capitalist world.
It is also naive to think that doctors are job guaranteed. I had explained enough in this blog. Frankly, there are close to 50K doctors in this country. How many do you see driving big cars and staying in big houses? Probably less than 10%. Isn’t that the same figure for any other profession? Furthermore, most of these doctors are still working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The public perception is usually biased towards what they see you having externally. They never see or want to see what happens behind the stage. That’s why many quit medicine after graduating. Never do medicine for wrong reasons!
Few days ago, a philanthropist made an announcement that he is willing to give free additional scholarship to those students whose parents are earning below Rm 4K/month. Not even 3 days later, he was shocked and amazed to receive close to 50 applications, almost all wants to do medicine (see below)! Thus, today, he wrote an interesting article asking these students and parents to wake up to reality. He had decided not to give scholarship to those who apply for medicine. Well, this is the very reason why I started this blog almost 6 years ago but yet again, no one listens. Every now and then, I too receive phone calls from students and even parents asking for financial assistance. Almost always the students will be doing medicine and already registered for 1st year. However, she/he is unable to pay the tuition fee for the 2nd year. When I ask them what happens for third year if you can somehow manage to get your fee for 2nd year, they almost always can’t answer. I find it ridiculous at times.
No matter how cruel and harsh it may sound, we are living in a capitalist world. Money talks. If you can’t afford to get scholarship, please do not do something that will lead you to huge debts. Never forget the house loan, married life and car loan that will come along the way. We just have to accept the reality and pursue what is affordable. Success in life comes in many ways. The philanthropist above is an engineer who built 2 conglomerate. How many doctors do you see becoming a philanthropist? How many doctors do you see retiring early at age of 40-50 and going for holidays around the world and being financially independent?
Our students lack in financial literacy. They are too dependent on family to the extent that they don’t understand what life is all about. Passion is one thing but living a life is another. At the end of the day it is all about money and living a life. Even in UK, doctors are going for a strike to challenge the government in reducing their income as mentioned in this blog before. I had warned many times that we are producing future generations with huge debts. Again this was brought up by another newsportal today.
Happy New Year 2016 to everyone. Sure we have a tough year ahead……….. while I publish my first book……….
Be realistic in your pursuit of a medical degree
January 10, 2016
Students should consider other courses such as accountancy, finance, engineering, marketing etc.
By Koon Yew Yin
Since the publication of my scholarship offer to help students whose parents are earning less than RM4,000 per month a few days ago, my wife has received more than 50 applications for financial help and most of the applicants want to pursue a medical degree which costs the most.
The sole purpose of writing this article is to help inform students who wish to study medicine not to apply for my financial assistance.
There are 40 Medical Colleges and about 500 Universities and Colleges in Malaysia. All of them are lowering their entry requirements to compete for more students.
Tuition Fee for a Medical Degree in Malaysia is between RM250,000 to RM1 million:
Among the cheapest are:
• University Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR): RM255,000
• AIMST University: RM250,000.
Among the mid range are:
• Asia Metropolitan University (AMU): RM300,000
• MAHSA University College: RM300,000
• Malacca Manipal Medical College (MMMC): RM348,000, Monash University Sunway: RM455,000
• Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NuMED): RM450,000
Among the more expensive are:
• Penang Medical College: RM650,000
• Perdana University offers the following: Royal College of Surgeons Ireland: RM800,000, John Hopkins University School of Medicine: RM1,000,000
All the above mentioned fees exclude accommodation, books, traveling costs, food and other expenses which could easily add another RM100,000 to the total cost of studying medicine.
A student will require at least RM350,000 to complete a medical degree. Assuming he can get a RM150,000 PTPTN loan, he will still require RM250,000.
Is it really worth pursuing a medical degree in Malaysia with such high fees?
It is compulsory for all medical graduates to practice in a government hospital for five years to complete their housemanship.
During this period their salary ranges between RM2,600 to RM4,000. As housemen they work for a minimum of 12 to 15 hours a day. After two years, their salary increases gradually to RM4,000 per month.
When they are promoted as medical officers their salaries range between RM4,500 to RM5,000. After the final year they have an option to continue their career in the government service or private concerns.
However, after 12 years and spending a minimum of RM350,000, is it worth it just to earn RM5,000 to RM6,000 per month as a doctor?
They must remember that they have to pay back the RM150,000 PTPTN loan at RM2,000 per month for about 20 years.
An alternative proposal:
I like to suggest to these students to consider other courses such as accountancy, finance, engineering, marketing, etc. The tuition fee for a one year foundation course is RM8,500 and for a 3 years degree course is about RM38,000 in UTAR. The fees for all government universities are less than RM20,000 for a degree course.
All students whose parents are earning less than RM4,000 per month can apply for my scholarships worth RM15,500 to cover the one year foundation course fee and the cost of living. After the completion of the foundation course, all students are entitled to receive PTPTN Government loans to complete their degree courses.
Since I made the offer to consider helping students who find the PTPTN not sufficient, my wife has received more than 50 applications in 2 days and most of the applicants want to study medicine. We found that most of the applicants are not realistic. They are poor and with poor results they want to study medicine.
With the PTPTN loan, the parents need to subsidize a small amount to complete their degree courses with the exception of a medical degree. If the parents are really poor, I am willing to consider helping them. My offer to help students doing degree courses has opened the door for all students in the country. But the students must be realistic. In any case, we reserve the right to reject any application for financial help.
Note: All scholarship recipients do not need to work for me or pay back the money I spent on them. But they must promise me that they will remember I helped them when they were poor and when they are financially solvent they must help other poor students. I believe many graduates will continue to help poor students when I die. Since I started offering scholarships about 10 years ago, I have given out about 300 scholarships and a large number of the recipients have graduated.
Koon Yew Yin is a retired civil engineer and one of the founders of IJM Corp Bhd & Gamuda Bhd.
With a firm belief in freedom of expression and without prejudice, FMT tries its best to share reliable content from third parties. Such articles are strictly the writer’s personal opinion. FMT does not necessarily endorse the views or opinions given by any third party content provider.
Pagalavan's Avatar 
Dr. Paga , AIMST has increased their tuition fees to RM 350 k , no longer RM 250 k . The same goes for the other medical courses in the university . Like you mentioned , capitalism .
everything is going up, so does the tuition fee. Not only for medicine but for everything else as well.
If only…
If only I had listened
I would be a family man, settled, 3 kids, good income, bright future, healthy, well fed, sleeping well,
But I refused to listen
In the name of noble profession
And I am now
Childless, moving from department to department, town to town, broke, no hope for future, overweight and waking up in the middle of night if nit from bleeps then from anxiety attacks.
It is comforting to see so many people still wanting to do medicine,
At least I know I am not the only stupid one who made a bad decision
because these people look up to those 10% Dr Pagalavan mentioned that own big house & luxury car…
something very wrong with our education system & Malaysia’s parents’ mindsets.
We want our school children to memorize everything by hard, discourage them from having a creative mind & think outside the box..
Malaysian parents seems to recognize only two professions…one is doctor, the other being lawyer. The rest are classified not prestigious enough….they do not know how a successful IT person can become billionaires by just writing an APP or how someone who is creative in fashion can make a name for himself/herself at the biggest show stage of the world…
(just some examples）
exactly! I have seen more rich and successful people in other fields than medicine!
I think another one is engineer.. if not medicine, they must do engineering.
I would like to remind everyone that not every engineer is successful. Also not every accountant earns more than a doctor. The grass will always be greener. I doubt that even 10% of engineers can have a luxurious lifestyle. If you want that I would suggest be a politician.
“If you love what you do, you will never work another day”
There is no guarantee that an engineer is happier at his job compared to a doctor. There are many engineers and lawyers who end up doing something else.
Do a course you like and can do well in and can Afford!!
Yes, people will do well in the field they are really interested. That,s i keep saying that you should never do medicine for wrong reasons .
Exactly,do something you are passionate and would not have to wake up like a zombie day after day dragging your beaten up body getting ready for work.When you are in love with your work so to,speak,work is no longer work!
Three years ago when my daughter was in Year 12, she was to decide which course she will decide to do after her A level. This is where she chance upon your blog. From her younger days till to Year 12 she was very sure that she wants and will be a doctor. Many a times her dad encourages her to be out of the box. Being a doctor is not the only choice of career he often says. However, after reading your blog she was convinced that medicine is not the only option and she will graduate with BSc in Mathematics from UK and has already made her plans for doing her Masters too. Thanks to you.
Indeed parents have to encourage children to look for other options of career. Often time we are so narrow minded on a few careers. I believe parents should be given some course on the many more careers that their children can choose.
When the gomen starts releasing all those graduate doctors after completing the 2 years service as MOs, then potential students and parents will think twice before enrolling into medical courses. As it is now, many opt for lower quality universities both locally and abroad and once graduate, they can the same salary as the brightest minds in the medical profession.
In Accountancy or engineering, there is no compulsory service in the gomen sector and all these graduates have to fend for themselves in the private sector and only the best will survive. Of course, those who got into the public sector can also shake legs.
There is an acute shortage of Accountants in the private sector and this is one profession that is needed most in good and bad times. In bad times, there are a lot of winding up cases to do and business restructuring and in good times when businesses are expanding, there is also an urgent need for more accountants.
But like it or not medicine is still a career of choice for parents and students, at least in their studying years.
Accountant no glamour mah! I know many accountants who are earning more than doctors with office hour jobs. Once you are eestablished your clerk will do all the work.
Hi, Dr Pagalavan, May I know what is your opinion about being a chiropractor ? I am actually very interested in studying human’s body parts and system. And, I think that besides of medical doctor, chiropractic is another good choice too.
It is a relatively new field in malaysia.
This is a situation rather peculiar to Malaysia, and perhaps a few other developing countries. The bottom line for this phenomena is poor (or rather in Malaysia’s case, intentional poor) manpower planning.
Medical manpower planning is carefully controlled in all properly managed developed countries, for obvious reasons. Hence, selection is tightly controlled, and total numbers carefully tuned, so that all doctors have minimal standards and safe, and shortages and oversupply avoided. An extension of this is that generally, it is quality and suitability of students that determines admission, not money, and no one who qualify and is interested is denied a place because of lack of money. At the same time, nobody who falls below the creme de la creme level are allowed to enrol.
Malaysia flies against all these principles. There is no national selection process, with students entering from myriad pathways. While IPTA are well subsidised, the places are restricted, and in compliance with national policies, true meritocracy generally takes a back seat. More than 300 overseas medical programmes are recognised by the MMC. Some of them see the lucrative demand, and run pure “international” programmes to rake in the money. Eligibility is money, not quality.
Over the last 10 years, the MoHE approved some 20 odd new private programmes, without regard to the ability of these new programmes to actually run a complex course like Medicine. In order to fill seats, these IPTS dropped recruitment standards, as long as prospective students can pay the fees.
These declining recruitment standards by both foreign as well as local private med schools prompted the MMC to issue a minimum entrance qualifications guideline, the only country in the world to need to do this! In spite of this, the minimum required is still dismally low, much lower than what would be considered acceptable in developed countries. Eg, BBB is accepted, whereas it is AAA (some already A*AA) in UK, and ATAR80 accepted whereas it is 95 in Australia (in actual reality, your chances are low without at least 98).
On the other side of the coin, we see “passion” being used as justification for entering medical school, irrespective of the actual academic ability and aptitude of the student. Such “passion” will never have been allowed to see the inside of any med school in the developed world, without the accompanying strong certified academic ability and aptitude. But due to the ease in Malaysia, “passion” and money assures you a place.
Even worse (and we get to the money part), such ease also allow those with “passion” but no money to get in. So with weak results and no money, they can secure a place, trying to borrow money along the way. To top it all off, just because they manage to get a place, they think that are entitled to scholarships/loans etc. I sit on a medical scholarship award body, and we have average B grade students who got into IPTS med schools, and proudly announce they “qualified” into med schools and think they deserve a scholarship.
The end result is not pretty. We face now the reality of graduates saddled with huge debts. Of incompetent Housemans. Of disinterested doctors (forced by their parents to do medicine) having mental issues and dropping out. And finally, the spectre of actually being jobless, now that there are too many doctors.
Who are responsible for this debacle? It’s obvious. And who will now have to deal with this problem?
you sum it up superbly! With money( and “passion”) you get into med school even u are an average student(according to MMC 2000 of medical graduates didn’t achieve 5Bs in SPM for the past 2 years)
and everyone knows the standard of SPM nowadays compare to 10, 20 years back….
I know I won’t seek treatment from these doctors….
I sat for my SPM in 1998 and all I can say that the syllabus for each spm subject was more wide-ranging and covered many areas compared to the modicum of material taught to the students nowadays. I presume the only reason for doing so is to increase the number of As per student.
Fifteen years back, a medical student with 5Bs was totally unheard of. With this kind of grades, they won’t be even considered for entry in a mathematics / statistics degree programme, let alone MBBS or MBChB ones. I presume what lavenderguy said is correct, the quality of medical graduates has indeed seriously dwindled and no action whatsoever can correct this shortcoming.
And this is perhaps one of the reasons why I leave practicing medicine for good. Working with numbers is more satisfying than working with arrogant but imbecilic colleagues who never even attempt to comprehend the complexities of issues at hand (for instance if the boss said the diagnosis is A, they will always think it is A until proven otherwise. thinking independently is perhaps not a norm and hence not inculcated adequately in our local medical setting. with maths is different, people are always encouraged to find better and more elegant solutions for each set of problems / paradoxes and those who are able to do so, will be rewarded generously regardless of their seniority and ages).
Hi Doc,
I think the stated price by Mr koon, was not accurate. Based on my understanding, aimst, the tuition fee is about 340k, plus or minus.
Monash, is about 600k, same as IMU, provided u complete 5 years locally.
Manipal, is about 500k, a combination or twin teaching in India and malaysia.
All the above was just a rumour figure, which I obtained from housemen, and a relative child which just get enrolled into monash.
Not just medical field are oversupply with graduates, in fact, law, engineering are all the same.
Perhaps, we need to learn from German education system which concentrate more In skill related field.
at my time, IMU only less than 300k locally…now it increases by 100%….how many parents got their income increase by 100% ? again, only the privileged can have the opportunity to enroll to these schools.
If you have 600k, one way is to invest it into asset/ property or doing a business, it could generate 6 millions(who knows?)
by doing a medical degree, you can’t practice else where if your degree doesn’t get recognize else where…
Yes, the figure quoted is the old figure. I know monash is about RM 500K now
unless your intention is to end up in a foreign hospital for the rest of your life,it doesnt matter much in terns of the reputation of the university simply because one would have to begin their career as an HO in any of the MOH in Malaysia anyway.That would mean equal playing field for all regardless of where ones graduated from be it from Oxford or from USU in Indonesia.So all of you who has decided to live and work in Malaysia, your Oxford medical degree dont carry much beef!
Yes, that is the whole problem with our system. Once in, no out unless you quit yourself. But eventually, jobs may not be guaranteed. How the selection will be done is the next big question mark!
Monash is about RM485k and Melaka Manipal is RM348k. If you just google, you will get the correct information and not speculating or basing on hearsay.
Hi Dr Paga, this blog is so interesting! I am a dermatology registrar in the UK at the moment. Finishing my training in 2 years time. Being a malaysian, I am always looking at options of returning etc if there are opportunities.. would you advise that? and would you know what procedures or exams we need to take to work in malaysia?
thanks alot!
If you complete your CCT, you just need to apply for NSR registration. However, you need to work in government service for 2 years.
[…] « For Future Doctors: Passion vs Debt vs Reality ………. Part 2 […]
Good day Dr. Paga, for over the past 3 years I had been trying to reach you and express my Big Thank You from oversea. The reason being, at that time, my girl was accepted by 2 UK and 1 KL medic schools, during that wartime period, our family was never in peace over these offers plus relatives and friends’ comments. At last, I gave in to let her moved into a school next to a golf course. At the meantime, some Angels enlightened us where my girl a foreigner in her own country encountered some mishaps during the the first week of introductory. Then, I flew into KL again and by a golden chance I was informed by the students that the government held a seminar in the school not long ago that it is a Compulsory to have a credit in BM in SPM level in order to get a housemanship opportunity ( government servant) in the government hospital.. This is later confirmed by a taxi driver.
I was really mad and dashed towards its cancellor’s office the next day morning! Of course, I was then arranged to talk to various top guns and the marketing staffs. I pulled out all the emails with the school and also the proof of the talk organized in the campus by the Malaysia government, of which demanded them to issue a written confirmation in black and white of their saying that a O level BM or even the university level Malaysia culture learning is sufficient.
Some even said they have examples where the candidates successfully obtained a BM credit in 5 years. I was then hold back my anger to remind them again that we are from different platform and she has no genius gene and I am ready to go onto the front page if she committed suicide based on the ground given in a letter stage!
We finally got back a refund in 1 month and now she is happily studying in UK and fully awakening of the truthful of Malaysia and UK medical industry Dr. Pagalavan and others commenters had been shared!
Mummy is not devil but Devils are found in details!
Dr. Paga, thank you very very much! Reality is simple! …
Probably you can email me what happened and which uni. pagal72@gmail.com
Hello sir. Could i please email you some queries on the private colleges offering MQE?
OK, pagal72@gmail.com